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12.2.14

Are You A Sugar Surfer?

12.2.14 | Ryan Fightmaster

As those who read the DDG know, I just started up the CGM (Medtronic’s Enline Continuous Glucose Monitoring). Yesterday marked my official CGM training with a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator), Christy Olson at Harold Hamm Diabetes Center in OKC. During our get together, she mentioned that my data looked like that of a “sugar surfer”. I’d never heard those words before but thought they sounded great together and asked for more. She told me to check out Dr. Stephen Ponder. So I did.

Some may know of him already but this guy’s a T1D endocrinologist. He walks the walk. He’s on a CGM. He’s not a “black and white” carb and correction ratio guy. He gets the uncertainty. He understands the many factors involved in day-to-day management, especially the trends!

After checking out one of his presentations and reading over a few of his posts online, I’ll attempt to break down the philosophy into a couple of enlightening bullet points (this will not do it justice, highly recommend checking out one of his presentations):

1) Master the micro-dose
He talks a lot about how to avoid “insulin stacking”. With small micro-doses of insulin as you see a small uptick in BG, you can more easily keep your sugar in the range without diving into the 50s and 60s.

2) Correct over two hours
Once high, his goal is to be back in a sustainable, consistent range within two hours. This is a difficult one. Sometimes I think I can make this happen in 15 minutes.

3) Eat on the downslide
He looks to eat meals once the blood sugar is trending downward. For example, you’re going steady at 130, take 3 units of insulin for breakfast, watch the line until it starts to dip towards 110, and then grub.

4) The trend is your friend
Throwing around terms like “insulin momentum”, “glucose inertia”, and flux, he make diabetes out to be a physics equation… But it is! Watching the trend is the power of the CGM. If we don’t watch this, what’s the point?

He’s got a book rolling out soon on Sugar Surfing. I’ll be checking it out.

Former co-founder of DiabetesDailyGrind, Ryan's mission is to motivate others with diabetes to live their own authentic life. Most days, when not in the hospital during his medical residency, you can find him on the bike, surfboard, or yoga mat. He believes in the power of clean eating, and loves his Dexcom.